Mechila
by musicnotes093
Summary: They say little girls choose their future husbands by the standards set by their own fathers, but I disagree. I have never wanted to spend my whole life with any man who is anything like my father. Episode tag to Shabbat Shalom. Part One of Two in series.


**Title:** "Mechila"  
**Rating:** FR13  
**Genre:** Death, Drama, Episode Tag  
**Pairing(s):** none  
**Summary:** They say little girls choose their future husbands by the standards set by their own fathers, but I disagree. I have never wanted to spend my whole life with any man who is anything like my father. _Episode tag to Shabbat Shalom._  
**Notes:**Part One of Two in the Shabbat Shalom tags. According to Balkin, Freeman, and Lyman (2009), 'mechila' is "the forgiveness of debt…particularly important in providing a framework of forgiveness when the issue of reconciliation is involved." Angst involved, so watch out.  
**WARNING:** Season 10 spoilers.

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They say little girls choose their future husbands by the standards set by their own fathers, but I disagree. I have never wanted to spend my whole life with any man who is anything like my father. He has lied to my mother, to my siblings, to me, and why would I desire a repeat of that? He has said he had done it to protect us; the truth will just harm us and put us in danger.

I guess he did not consider its consequences as agonizing and perilous.

He was proud of his country, which in my earlier supposition was in a degree tolerable for any other man, yet often times that had blurred his judgment of what should matter most. His service to his nation was his wife, his countrymen and subjects his children, while his wife was an obligation and his children his workers. When I was younger, I regarded his dedication as something worth boasting about. He toiled at his job like no one else, and that was the golden standard for a head of a household.

However, that paradigm soon turned out into nothing but a sad disillusionment. He was building a strong office with his right hand while destroying his family with his left. Each year that has passed laid bare the faults of this man I once admired. These soon compiled into sins. Sins, which I could not afford to pardon and could no longer imagine forgetting due to deep, ineffaceable scars that they had inflicted.

Nevertheless, it only took a chance to see there was hope. There is a different life, and it is rich and possible. Yes, it approached sluggishly, hesitantly, hostilely so, but it is a change. The idea of having a family of my own is not obscured by apprehension so much anymore. There were true friends and another man who rewrote the favorable values of what a husband and a father should be for me.

Increasingly still I thought about my father and felt somehow sick for not being able to be with him. If only I knew how soon I would see him, how I would be thrown out of the family I thought I was a part of to be abandoned to another that had forsaken me, probably I would not have felt that way.

He erred once again and this time, it almost destroyed me to ashes. It ignited a fire that burned the shabby bridge that once connected us, and it was never to come back. The last thread of hope was snapped when his path intertwined with mine years after, and he delivered the honest blow that, once more, he opted to volunteer a collateral for the sake of his country, and it was his own flesh and blood.

I had yet to exhaust the last of my tears and live the concluding days into recovery when he came back. My loyalty has shifted, and the respect and admiration he was seeking from me already belonged to another person. He wanted a change between us, to fix what had been broken. He did not beg for it, as it was beneath him to do so, but now and again I spotted hints of sincerity in his wishes.

Slowly but surely, I believed him.

I dreamed it would be alright between us again. He could gain a degree of my friendship since that was all I could offer him at the moment. From there, we would move forward. Something told me it would not take that long. His approving smile that I resented before gave me relief at that instant. He was supportive of the family I will have, no matter how imaginary it was, and it was the best he had given any of his children as far as I could remember.

Then it revealed itself as what it was—a lie. Like many others, this promise of redemption, of new life, was just a ruse. He had a plan and again, I was just the cover.

He attempted to explain, to tell me that he did these things to protect the peace he had always wanted for me. How could I believe him? There remained a semblance of pleading in his eyes and the stalwart earnestness that he never lost, but how could he ask me to be convinced in these promises when the trail of broken ones behind him contradicted his reality of doing so?

I told him the bitter truth, that his mistakes are too great.

For the first time, I had broken his heart. I knew. I could see it from his reaction. Still, he asked me to share one last meal, and the dwindling measure of love I had for him moved me to grant this request.

The frustration and sorrow raged a battle in my head all night that I lost focus. I could still see the sadness in his eyes and his imploration for understanding, yet I refused to buy it. He wanted to give thanks, he had said, for life and friends and family, but I could not stand it anymore.

Angry and self-righteous, I called the man who I had run to many times to confess for my father. I betrayed him.

I betrayed him, and it was the last thing I did for him.

This truth binds my conscience with a shackle heavier and tighter than I can ever endure. He is dead, and I am too late. I have placed my job in a higher value than him, and I have lost out on any opportunities to say goodbye and that I, too, have lied.

I have admitted an untruth by saying that I have lost any affection for him, because I would give anything to have even just a minute to spend with him.

I have admitted an untruth by saying that I would never become anything like him. I neglected him for the one moment he wanted to be with me, his only family, for a duty. I had forgotten the good in him because I was too absorbed on all the bad. I overlooked those times with him that I've cherished the most, like that smile that surfaced on his face days prior. I sacrificed him for my view of what is right.

It has been said that one must forgive others of their sins seventy-seven times. I was too focused on counting past the number that I ignored what it really meant. One must forgive another many times insomuch that he fails to recall that another has committed many acts against him, whether on purpose or not.

I left the dinner table with a torn heart that would have had all the time in the world to heal. He left everything with his not having any chance to be sown back together until all the time in the world expires.

I should not have let it come to this. I should have forgiven him for the imperfection that plagued both him and me.

This, for long, will be the burden I'll have to carry.

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**All comments welcome.**


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